House Gets Tough On Sex Offenders

Bill Requiring Monitoring For Life Ok'd

April 20, 2005|By Mark Hollis and Sean Mussenden Tallahassee Bureau and Anthony Man of the Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report.

Tallahassee — As the grieving father of Jessica Lunsford lingered in the Capitol to remind legislators of his 9-year-old daughter's death, the Florida House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to tighten the laws on how sex offenders are tracked.

"I would pay any price tag to bring my daughter back, and I'll pay any price to save another child," said Mark Lunsford, choking back tears only minutes before the House unanimously passed the "Jessica Lunsford Act" that will require lifetime electronic monitoring of certain sex offenders.

It's what some see as a predictable legislative response to the wave of national publicity surrounding the abduction and murder of the Citrus County girl -- allegedly at the hands of a sex offender -- and the deaths of two other girls during the past year.

"It would have been crazy to vote against this bill, given the tone of the state right now," said House Democratic Leader Rep. Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale. "The bill was the right thing to do. Our constituents want something done harshly right now to protect their children ... This subject is so strong in peoples' minds that to be a true representative of your district you had to vote for it."

The state has more than 8,800 sex offenders on probation. The legislation, after being amended significantly Tuesday, would affect only certain new offenders and parole violators, adding within three years an estimated 1,700 people to the state's electronic monitoring program at a cost of $13 million, including about $3 million more next year alone.

It would be the largest expansion ever of the nation's oldest electronic monitoring program, which began in 1997 and is run privately by a Tampa vendor, Pro Tech, which now draws about $2 million from the state each year.

Advocates say the legislation corrects flaws in the justice system that led to the 2004 murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota, Lunsford's death earlier this year, as well as the abduction and murder this month of 13-year-old Sarah Lunde of Ruskin, near Tampa.

A sex offender was charged this week with the abduction and murder of Lunde, whose body was found Saturday.

The state Department of Corrections currently uses three types of electronic monitoring, keeping track of 697 people, of whom 518 are sex offenders on probation. Only 50 people in Florida are on probation for life, but the bill could increase those numbers tenfold or more within years, analysts say.

House Bill 1877 imposes a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life in prison for people convicted of molesting children younger than 12 years old. If the person serves less than life, their prison time would be followed by monitoring by a so-called "active GPS" tracking system that uses satellite and cell phone technologies.

The measure is almost identical to Senate Bill 1216, which is set for tentative Senate approval today.

The bills toughen penalties against probationers who try to tamper with the monitoring devices, and it imposes new sentences on people who help sex offenders evade cops.

In previous years and in other states, electronic monitoring has invited attacks from defense lawyers, civil liberties groups and others who say it smacks of big-brother intervention that could violate offenders' constitutional rights to privacy.

Hardly any such concerns are being raised in the Florida Legislature this month.

Despite the costs and significance of the changes, the bill is drawing accolades from both ends of the political spectrum -- endorsements from conservative Republican legislators who see it as a viable means of keeping children and sexual predators apart and backing from civil libertarians and public defenders who say it's a smarter alternative to warehousing sexual offenders in prison.

"We've always argued that electronic monitoring can be an effective tool much preferable for many offenders than just needless incarceration," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The electronic monitoring bills are reaching floor votes ahead of legislation pushed this year by Attorney General Charlie Crist as a response to the Brucia case. Under the bills, judges would have to hold a hearing to decide whether a violent felon who violates probation presents a risk to the community. If the felon is deemed a risk, the judge would send him to prison. If the felon is not a risk, the judge would have to enter an order stating so before the felon is put back on probation.

With more than 146,000 criminals on some type of probation or community supervision, some critics have questioned the cost of the tougher probation regulations. A Senate analysis put the first-year cost of the measure at $231 million, citing the need to build another 2,479 prison beds. It estimated that judges would find that felons are a risk in three out of every four cases.

The Jessica Lunsford Act to expand Florida's electronic monitoring program is drawing no such criticism, rather praise from Democrats who have traditionally balked at legislation that imposes minimum mandatory criminal sentences.

Public defenders across the state, including Howard Finkelstein in Broward County, are supportive of the electronic monitoring legislation, according to Bob Wills, an assistant Broward public defender.

But both Gov. Jeb Bush and House Speaker Allan Bense endorsed the legislation Thursday.

Anthony Man of the Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report.

Mark Hollis can be reached at mhollis@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.